Toronto Airport Deploys Quantum Secure Identity Management/Access Control System

  • Feb 06, 2009

Quantum Secure recently announced it has deployed its SAFE software suite for Toronto Pearson International Airport, the busiest airport in Canada.

Since initiating the use of SAFE for its identity management and access control security systems, Toronto Pearson has already realized reductions in credentialing processing time, along with related cost savings. Based on these preliminary results, the airport expects it will meet the following by the end of the first quarter 2009.

  • Average cost per customer from $49 to $35, a 28 percent savings.
  • Average wait times from 560 minutes to 20 minutes, a 96 percent reduction.
  • Average service time from 74 minutes to 25 minutes, a 66 percent decrease.

Toronto Pearson, under governance by the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), handles 30 million passengers per year, employs more than 33,000 people and is an important economic engine for Toronto and all of Southern Ontario.

The airport’s Pass/Permit Control Office, which issues restricted area identification/access control cards and passes for employees, was in need of technological answer to the many challenges involved in the time-intensive process. Bryan Scott, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority’s senior manager of security infrastructures, was also looking to overhaul the system to improve efficiencies, service and operations, as well as reduce costs.

“The PPCO serves an average of 175 clients per day (more than 45,000 employees and contractors each year) for a wide variety of pass/permit requests,” Scott said. “We needed a system that could keep up with this demand, ensuring that important staff started work in a timely fashion while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.”

After an extensive RFP process, the GTAA selected Deloitte Canada as its systems integrator and Quantum Secure’s SAFE as a customizable software solution that could accomplish these tasks -- without having to replace the whole system.

“Because every employee of every airline, shop, food vendor, contractor and consultant working at Toronto Pearson, as well as airport employees themselves, must be processed by the PPCO, this function is critical for the economic vitality, operation and security of the airport,” said Andre Romanovskiy, Deloitte senior manager of security and privacy services.

The SAFE suite of software enabled Toronto Pearson to incorporate its existing, fragmented physical security processes and systems into a larger IT infrastructure, automating many of the previously physical, labor-intensive tasks of credentialing employees. It also made the applications more user-friendly, with better customer service, while leveraging the productivity opportunities available from the technology infrastructure.

With its partner Deloitte Canada, Quantum Secure completed the deployment of the new PPCO improvement program at Toronto Pearson in December

“We are very proud to be a systems integrator of choice for the GTAA on this important initiative,” Romanovskiy said. “They have certainly created a model for others to follow.”

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